


Entrac’te: The Feast of the Ironmonger

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [48]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Rebirth, Redemption, Togruta Hunt Culture, Winter Solstice, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: A hunter waits for the light, as the darkness rises in the future.A huntress finds the light again, when the darkness surrounds her in the past.





	Entrac’te: The Feast of the Ironmonger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilyena-sylph (ilyena_sylph)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/gifts).



> A prompt by ilyena-sylph on Shili Winter solstice traditions. Hope that it suits.
> 
> Mentions of incidents that will be expanded upon in the next long story.

Cubreem the Hunter looks out over the plains as the sun goes down. It is early afternoon in the ancient hunt-fast on this, the shortest day of the year. The Feast Day of the Ironmonger—the cold day in which the season changes to the one of rest and renewal.

The season where hunters and huntresses renew their skills and their strengths. Where the hunt-fast or clanstead’s ironmonger would take their orders for new hunting blades, either the knives or long spears that tame the _akar_ for meat and the _akul_ for protection and skill. He lifts his hands to the teeth that decorate his forehead. His eyes grow even more distant as he remembers the day that he had earned that headdress.

He remembers the pride of his hunt-mother, her blue eyes shining as she rests her own headdress against his after she had placed it. He remembers the strong hands of his hunt-father, a human slightly older than his hunt-mother, as he places the hunt-gift of a brand new knife and belt around his waist. All while his adoptive mother and father look on with their own pride and his little sister looks on with envy painted on her young face.

He wipes his eyes as he thinks about his duty as leader of this hunt-fast on this day. He looks over as members of the hunt-fast laugh and sing as they prepare the mountains of food and the large bonfire for the celebration.

He closes his violet eyes—the harbinger of a master-hunter in his culture. A culture that is only kept in the old lands. A culture dying slightly faster than it was when he had taken his first teeth, in defense of this ‘fast.

Cubreem thinks on the words he must speak for the people. Words of ancient stories of renewal from the distant past. Try as he might, he cannot push the shared laughter of his hunt-mother and hunt-father after his first hunt from his mind’s ears. Of blue eyes gazing into green, just before they had stolen away into the night, their arms about each other’s bare waists.

A bright red light flashes in his eyes. He clinches his teeth as he looks up at the sky, in the quadrant of the Spear, as Cubreem the Hunter would say, or from Coreward as Captain Cubreem Makyo-Ry of the Alliance Special Forces—from a past life—would describe it.

The blaze of light had arrived several days ago. Almost instantaneously. Through hyperspace, it was said, rather than the normal light years. With the explosion came the news that the New Republic fleet and Senate had died in one fell swoop. Since that time, system after system had surrendered to the darkness. Even after better news had arrived of how the rag-tag band of General Organa’s resistance fighters had destroyed the First Order’s deadly weapon.

At a high cost. Cubreem stares at the light-show as he thinks of his former commanding General, Han Solo. A hero who had died, it was said, at the hands of his own son.

He tries to think of how he will speak of rebirth and renewal. If he can even convince himself that the light has not died.

A bright voice sparks in his head. A voice from his past.

_It’s always darkest before the dawn, my proud little hunter._

He nods as Ahsoka Tano’s voice resounds in his head, with a story from her past.

~=~=~=~=~=

**Approximately 1.5 Years after the Fall of the Republic  
Shili**

Ahsoka Tano slowly wakes from the pounding in her head. She closes her eyes against the bright light of the morning sun. She smacks her lips against against the dryness of her mouth. Against the dryness and the foul taste that glues her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

The small AT-TE Enforcer that tromps through her brain does not slow as she awakes. She manages to lever herself up to the somewhat-vertical from the sleeping pad. She mumbles a greeting to the broad chest and the montrals and lekku of her sleeping companion.

Her eyes jerk open and back. A tall hunter of about her age snores against her hip. He snuffles and burrows closer to her, but does not wake. She closes her eyes as a cacophony of sensations rushes through her mind—of touches and tastes, of cries in the night. All while she tries to forget her shame in an endless night of attempting to lose herself in the light of the Ironmonger celebrations.

She had come back to her homeworld, for the first time since her training Hunt to hide. To hide from the shame of a mistake. A mistake that very well could cost Bail Organa and others their lives. As well as the lives of their worlds and their families.

A mistake that had caused her to lose an entire week of her life. Not just her memory, but her Force-memory, as well. She climbs from the bed, careful not to wake her bed-partner. Her mind and her stomach reels. Her eyes fall on the glass with the tiny bit of orange liquid at the bottom of it. She steels herself, and lifts the glass to her lips. She grimaces at the vile taste of the _turu_ -grass moonshine.

Ahsoka has gathered her clothes and is about to leave, when she stops. She reaches down and touches the hunter’s lips with her own, running the back of her hand over the gold skin of his forehead. She tries to push the sight of his green eyes from her mind. Green eyes focused on her as they danced in the rituals of the Ironmonger’s Feast. As they danced one of a different sort, later in the night. A dance in which she tries to banish memories of another with similar green eyes. One who is most assuredly dead in the cataclysm that destroyed their kind.

She turns and moves out into the daylight. As she reaches the street, she turns to to hurriedly pull her clothes on. She hears a clucking noise behind her. She sees two older women of the hunt-fast staring at her as she pulls her leggings up. She stops, looking at her toes. The first woman—the youngest lifts her nose in the air as if she smells something and continues on her way.

The older grins at her and drops an eye in a wink. As she walks past Ahsoka, she reaches out and touches her on her wing-marking. “Don’t mind her, dearie,” she trills in their shared language. “It is what you are supposed to be doing on Ironmonger’s night. A child conceived on that night will have good fortune and skill,” she says.

Ahsoka closes her eyes as the import of this hits her. I really hope that damned strip is not out of date. That is all that I need. She curses her inattention. An inattention that was a result of trying to forget her failures.

She walks past the still-smoldering remnant of the Guardian-Fire. She stops as a memory assaults her. A memory from the day before, when she had placed her two half-finished lightsabers on a makeshift shelf in a hidden cave, only a few kilometers away.

As she prepared to run even further from her mistake and her past. She sees others kneeling next to the smoldering ruins, calling on the Pantheon for good fortune and aid in their renewal. A distant voice in her mind—a voice in a slight Corellian drawl that cuts through her heart—tells her to kneel as well.

She rests on the heels of her boots. Instead of entreating the spirits and sprites of the Pantheon, she opens her mind to her birthright. She remembers the earliest connections with the Force, in a kin-fast not far from here, near the Lar River. Where keen hunters and huntresses, as well as those with a reputation for being incorrigible smart-asses, were bred.

_Well, I meet the last part of my birthright._

Her mind starts as she feels the connection open and blossom. Instead of memories, she hears the incantations of her world’s celebration of the renewal of the light. On the night that days begin to lengthen again.

 _We begin the preparation for the Eternal Hunt._  
We renew ourselves in the strengthening light.  
We face the weakening darkness with steadfast hearts and with sure hands.  
Without fear.  
Where there is fear, we strengthen each other.  
We forge the new iron, we sharpen the new blades.  
To give our hunt-fast its life and guard against the akul and other darknesses.  
We strengthen in the coming light.

The Force swells in her brain. Images flow rapid fire in her Force sense. Not memories, but sensations. Sensations of warmth, of love, of salvation. Of a child’s chubby arms around her neck.

Her eyes snap open. She now knows that she did not betray anyone in those missing days. She knows in her heart of hearts that she did not betray Organa—the man who had helped her find purpose after the death of the Jedi. After Raada. She rises, her heart and mind calm. The vision of a different lightsaber in her mind. A lightsaber that calls her—that represents that warmth and love in the form of a dark emerald blade.

Without a word, she makes a barely remembered benediction, one that her own hunt-mother, Shaak Ti had taught her. She bows in the direction of the Guardian-Fire. As she walks to find transport to the capital city, she remembers another Jedi Master and his words. A tall Jedi, with a calm, deep, dry voice, spoken through a breathing mask.

_It is always darkest before the dawn, little ‘Soka._

 ~=~=~=~=~=

A pair of green eyes watches the young woman stride with purpose—newfound purpose with life teeming in every step. He smiles as he remembers touches and warmth in the night.

Jedu, the new Ironmonger keeps the smile on his face as he makes sure that the forge is brought hotter. He gives his benediction to the Great Ironmonger as he thinks of the nameless young woman.

_She lives._

~=~=~=~=~=

**Thirty Years after the Birth of the New Republic**

Cubreem the Hunter looks out over the assembled crowd, the light of the Guardian-Fire competing with the light of the Hosnian System. No one speaks as he finishes. He looks over at the old Ironmonger. He had not mentioned the name in his story—Ahsoka had never learned the hunter’s name. Jedu smiles warmly at him, as his green eyes are fixed on him. Cubreem can see the memories of what might’ve been as his grandchildren and great-grandchildren surround him.

Cubreem takes a breath.”I know that we are supposed to tell stories of the distant past—of heroes redeemed. Of bold hunts and cunning hunters who saved their villages. I think that I did, but in this time of darkness, we might need to know that our heroes are fallible—that they can fall.”

He takes a drink from his cup. He grins at the smell of Corellian whisky, rather than the moonshine. Another legacy from his hunt-mother and hunt-father. “This is a time of renewal. Of reforging of blades.” He smiles at his son and his son’s mate, as they cuddle. “A time for beginnings—including starting new hunters and huntresses—with the legends about conceptions on this night.”

He looks up at the Hosnian inferno. “We know that our leaders are debating whether to roll over to the First Order. To surrender to the darkness. I say that we remember that this is a night of renewal of faith as well. Faith in those like Ahsoka Tano in the past, or Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker, today. Faith that the light will grow as the days lengthen.”

He stops, unable to continue. He steps down and turns away. There is silence.

Silence until one clear voice begins to recite the incantation that had drawn his hunt-mother back into the fight, all of those years ago.

As he listens, he feels a tug on his trouser leg. A young girl, about ten years old, holds up a datapad. He smiles as he recognizes her as one of the best students in the clanstead, not just the hunt-fast.

“Elder Cubreem. It says in my history book that Elder Tano died. That she was killed even before the Battle of Yavin.”

His eyes tear as he thinks of his hunt-mother and hunt-father. He thinks of secrets in a cave near another hunt-fast. He grins.

“Don’t believe everything that you read, dear,” he says softly. “Especially if it’s in a history book.” He reaches down and kisses the girl between her montrals.

Dawn breaks over the hunt-fast as he walks to his house.

_They live._


End file.
